Truth and Justice
by KCS
Summary: What happened after the awkward and tense near-ending of the episode Twilight? A real friend is the one who tells us what we need to hear, not what we want to hear - no matter how much the truth hurts one or both of us.


_Continuance of that extremely awkward and abrupt ending (srsly, they ended it there??) to the JL episode **Twilight**, with references to the STAS episodes **Legacy **and **World's Finest**._

_And I own nothing but my pre-ordered DVD of **Batman-Superman: Public Enemies**. _

* * *

"You know something, Bruce? _You're not always right_."

Eyes narrowed, he glared a black hole into the receding scarlet cape, biting back the scathing retort that came instinctively. _That_ particular phrase he was contemplating definitely wouldn't help matters any, though it would be _satisfying_ after this mess of a mission.

He watched from a safe distance as a red-booted foot sent a boulder larger than the Javelin hurtling down the side of the cliff to splinter at the heart of the gorge, and only when Superman finally was still, looking out at the sky, did he move after him.

"We need to rejoin the others," he said flatly, and from carefully out of arm's reach.

He heard an uncharacteristically bitter snort. "I'm surprised you didn't just grab me and _force_ me to go with you by now."

Lenses narrowing into needle-thin slits, he scowled. "This isn't about _me_, Kent. Don't try to make it."

A whirl of red and blue before his eye could catch up, and they were face to face again. "I'm not making it about -"

"You _are_," he corrected, arms folded impassively. "You haven't been _thinking_ – other than about _yourself_ – this entire mission."

"_Thinking_?" The explosion, while fully expected, was no less earth-shattering when it finally detonated. But he refused to step backward, knowing that was what Superman was hoping he would do. "Bruce, _thinking_ is _all_ I've been doing! Do you have _any_ idea what he really _did_ to me? How many people I _killed_, because of his brainwashing? How many people still are _afraid_ of me, for what I did? He _deserved_ to die, and _you_ got in the way of me finishing the job. I wanted to –"

"That's _enough_!" That ferocious snarl could make the worst of mob bosses turn themselves in to the Gotham PD willingly rather than face him in a dark alley. "_Listen_ to yourself, Clark!" They were nearly nose to nose now, neither giving an inch or willing to back down. "_Listen_ to what you're _saying_!"

"I _know_ what I'm _saying_," Superman ground out through clenched teeth, eyebrows tied in a dark knot of rage.

"Then you're a _liar_, in addition to being selfish," he replied evenly, though he was prepared to move faster than he ever had in order to dodge a fist, if it came down to it.

"**What?**" Superman growled dangerously, hands clenching – but still at his sides; that was good at least. Earlier, on the Watchtower, he'd overheard Hawkgirl telling J'onn that she'd thought Superman might throw him through the window when he'd purposely gotten in his face with the unpleasant truth.

He knew Clark better than that. But then again, some of the things he had said today were distinctly un-Clark-like. He tensed, ready to dodge, _just in case_.

That didn't stop him from again snapping out the truth. "I called you a _liar_, Kent," he growled, folding himself back into his cape to form an immobile black pillar against the greenery. "And if I thought it would do anything other than break my _hand_ I'd have tried _showing_ you instead of _calling_ you on it."

Even prepared, even with the fastest reflexes of any non-meta, he still wasn't fast enough to dodge the large hand that shot out to grab him by the arm; not _too_ roughly, but enough that he couldn't break free and struggling was painful – and it was his bad arm, too, thanks to the fact that his shoulder had been pretty badly bruised this afternoon. He silently bit back a grunt and stopped trying to free himself, for the moment.

"I am _not_ a liar – that's one thing I'll _never_ be!" Superman's eyes flashed dangerously from blue to black, and he set his jaw determinedly against them.

Yes, this was the reaction he'd been going for, but that didn't make it any _easier_ to say what needed to be said, to reanimate those half-buried memories. But it was _necessary_, and being dramatic was a major part of his success as the Batman. Drama was _effective_. His free hand flew up like a striking cobra, and yanked the cowl back over his head in a harsh jerk. The mask slipped backward, and the world appeared in its true form, not the veiled reflection-world in which he normally lived.

Their voices had already risen in crescendo so that he was nearly shouting now, but at that moment he didn't care. "_You_ are the one who told me years ago that this _costume_ and this _cape_ weren't _licenses_ to take private revenge on _anyone_ – _deserving or not_!"

The hand on his arm clenched suddenly, so tightly it went numb from the wrist down, but he continued through his teeth. "And I _believed_ you," he punctuated bitterly, and lowered his eyes to drift aimlessly over the red S on the other's costume – a symbol of justice that had today strayed far from its original intent.

He heard a sharp intake of breath, and the clamp on his arm released as suddenly – more suddenly – as it had appeared. Superman hovered backward a pace or two, staring at him wide-eyed; literally shocked into forgetting the reason the confrontation had started in the first place. _Good._

He retreated once more into the folds of his cape, to work some feeling back into his arm unseen by eyes too aghast to concentrate on x-ray vision. His good hand pulled the cowl back into place with a definitive swish.

Clark didn't move.

A bird chirped annoyingly nearby, trilling a ridiculous tune that finally trailed off into silence.

And finally Superman's feet touched down with a thump that vibrated the ground under him.

"I _wasn't_ trying to save _Darkseid_ from getting what he deserved," he said flatly. "He had that coming to him and _more_, for what he did to you. I was stopping _you_ from _regretting_ _it_ for the rest of your life, like you regret what you did under his control."

Superman's mouth opened wordlessly, then closed again, jaw shaking even more than his hands, fisted against his sides.

"_Find me_ when you're ready to join the others."

He turned in a majestic swirl of black and gray, and melted into the trees without looking back.

--

An hour or two later he was sitting on the grass, out of sight of their confrontation of earlier, when something thumped lightly behind him. A fluttering of settling cape, and a morose sigh informed him clearly who it was. He acknowledged nothing, only stared out across the alien landscape and wished for Earth and its non-superpowered quasi-normality.

Finally a small whoosh of air sent a nearby leaf scurrying, a presence settled beside him, and he had company whether he wanted it or not. The good thing was that he knew he wouldn't have to break the awkward stillness – one, he (for once) had an entirely clear conscience; two, he had _never_ lost a battle of wills; and three, Clark was a sucker for the silent treatment.

He didn't have to wait very long.

"You should have left me," Superman finally said sadly, the lower-than-lowest tone splitting the silence into equal parts humiliation and gloom. "I would've deserved it."

"Yeah…you _would_," he agreed, putting his left hand down and leaning that direction. An ant began crawling over his gauntlet, and he absently flicked it into the grass. "But I don't like the idea of telling Lois I left you on an asteroid reaching _critical mass_, just because I was ticked at your _attitude_."

A painful, small _grmf_. Then, quietly, "I take it back."

"Hmn? Take what back?"

"_Everything_. You _are_ always right, Bruce."

He grunted, inclining his head in neither agreement nor disagreement, and finally glanced over at the Man of Steel. Superman had drawn up his knees slightly, resting his elbows on them, with his head drooping toward them in the saddest look he had ever seen outside of a nine-year-old Dick's begging him to attend some ridiculous school play years ago. He hadn't been able to stand it then, and he couldn't stand it now.

He didn't know why he did it, or why he even _wanted_ to, but after hesitating just for a second he laid a gloved hand on the slumped shoulder, and felt it shake slightly under his grip.

He opened his mouth to say something, goodness knew what, but somehow nothing came and he snapped it shut again, more frustrated with himself for not knowing what to do than he ever could be with a man who had, understandably, lost himself in a desire for vengeance (wasn't he a fine one to talk?).

Then some vague, misty portion of the lighter side of his childhood surfaced from the shadows – Alfred's cultured, patient voice, informing him as a boy that when in doubt, it was better to say nothing.

And apparently, he found, that was right. Alfred was _always_ right. (It got monotonous after a couple of decades.)

Because "Thanks," came the whispered acknowledgement a moment later, and he nodded, retreating back into his comfort zone, secretly relieved that nothing more had been necessary.

"Well, at least you're sounding more like _you_, and less like _Luthor_ or someone equally obsessed with another man's death," he observed.

He received a cringing, blue-eyed blink, and then another dismal sigh. "Yeah…" The Man of Steel's head jerked up suddenly. "I never did thank you for shutting off that…that _thing_, did I?"

"No," he agreed, carefully concealing the smug smirk threatening to show, now that the atmosphere was thinning enough for it to be visible through the tension.

"Oh, for heaven's sake…" Superman groaned, pinching his forehead in one hand for a moment before leaning over on one elbow, as if too tired –or too humiliated – to hold his head up anymore._ Interesting_. He suddenly wondered if Kryptonians got _headaches_ just like the rest of humanity. "I'm sorry," Superman was continuing, shame-faced. His twitching fingers plucked a long blade of grass, twiddling it before suddenly shredding it compulsively. "I owe you for two today."

"Three," he corrected, his voice unusually quiet, and free of that razor-edge that usually killed any argument before it started – with anyone. "Twice for Darkseid, and once for _yourself_."

Clark wouldn't look at him now, and he bent down slightly to get his attention. "I _told_ you I'd keep you from going rogue again and killing innocent people." Unconscious instinct clenched his right hand around the lead-lined pocket of his utility belt. "And that includes killing _yourself_, Clark."

Face half-hidden, Superman nodded solemnly, and he sat back, satisfied that he had driven the point far enough into the man's thick head (for now, anyway). While looking up at the debris floating where Brainiac's headquarters had been, he felt an inquiring mental nudge from the Martian, who obviously had been monitoring the anger levels in the clearing, if not the actual exchange of words earlier.

Suddenly feeling his skin crawl in familiar warning that had saved him many a concussion from Gotham thugs, he looked back to see Superman's gaze focused on him sharply, a look of horror just now dawning in those impossibly blue eyes. "I threw you into a wall," he gasped in sudden realization.

He raised an eyebrow as the Man of Steel abruptly scooted out of reach, as if afraid he was for some reason going to do it again for no apparent reason. Swatting an insect away from his face, he sighed tolerantly and let a half-smirk appear. "Mmhm. Not as hard as you did when we first met, though."

Relaxing visibly at his light tone (and the fact that he had re-closed the distance yawning between them), Clark's lips twitched. "You crashed a Metropolis nightclub and tossed me into a table first, remember?"

"I doubt it qualified as an _even_ _match_," he retorted dryly.

A smile finally broke across the Man of Steel's drawn features, and he stretched his arms over his head, apparently content to lie there for a moment and look up at the sunset.

J'onn's kind reminder that they were _waiting_ on them was what abruptly broke the tranquility a half-hour later.

He scowled, not anticipating the ride home through a boom tube. Clark yawned, sprang lightly to his feet and then extended a hand downward. It was the hesitation in the offered motion, not the fact that he needed the help, that caused him to accept the gesture for the apology it was. He reached up with his left, and was pulled gently to his feet.

"I _am_ sorry, Bruce," Clark suddenly murmured. He was still holding the black-gloved hand gingerly, as if afraid to even flex his fingers for fear of causing more damage.

He was the one that tightened the grip, and held it for a long moment. "I know. Now let's go home."

"Right." Clark shot up into the air, hovered for a moment, cape streaming like a suddenly-lifted banneret, and then dropped again. "They're still in the same spot," he reported, slightly more cheerfully – in fact, sounding more like himself than he had since Darkseid's appearance in the Watchtower. Remaining a foot or so off the ground with a hand outstretched, Superman smiled, and just that simply the chaos of the last few hours dissipated on the evening wind. "You coming?"

"Ugh. No." He'd had enough of flying and boom tubes and all the rest of it for one day. If he couldn't _control_ the speed and direction of the transportation (and also control his _stomach_), he wasn't going. "I'll walk, thanks."

"Then I will too. I mean…unless you…"

"Are you going to _come_ down_,_ or are you wanting me to _yank_ you down?"


End file.
